Getting carried away with games, we often forget that real people are hiding behind fictional characters. This is especially true for the MMORPG genre, where tens and hundreds of hours of life spent in the virtual world are spent on the development of a hero. I tell my story about people in World of Warcraft Classic for whom WoW has become more than a game.
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My introduction to World of Warcraft
I started playing World of Warcraft in August 2019 with the launch of the Classic servers. Before that, my acquaintance with the Blizzard MMORPG was limited to a short run through Warlords of Draenor. However, by that time, the game had already become so huge that it was easy for an untrained user to get lost in its mechanics and lore. It happened to me too.
I was looking forward to the release of World of Warcraft Classic. I liked the very concept of the MMORPG, and I really wanted to look at its original version. To that WoW, in which you did not need to study gigabytes of lore from YouTube videos and understand dozens of nuances in order to understand well what was happening on the screen. The world of “classics” impressed me from the very beginning – after launching the servers, I saw dozens or even hundreds of new players around me … and also faced technical problems. The main wave of lags ended only after a few hours, and then my friend and I finally started pumping characters.
Unlike the current version of World of Warcraft, the process of leveling up in Classic is a full-fledged part of the game – it takes a considerable amount of time and forces you to unite with strangers, because the system for finding partners for passing dungeons and other activities in the “classic” is not provided. To go somewhere, the player must look for like-minded people in the chat, which leads to casual acquaintances and gives you a real taste of adventure. In the course of the pumping, I met many different people – I wanted to get rid of the company of some as soon as possible, while with others we went to the dungeons several times and talked on a variety of topics, having fun together.
The first seconds after launching WoW Classic
Joining the guild and the first raid
Having approached the maximum level, I began to think about what I would do after completing the pumping. Most of all, I was attracted by the passage of raids, which in Classic are designed for 40 people, so the logical decision was to find a guild, which was not so easy.
As a newcomer to the world of World of Warcraft, I didn’t want to join hardcore guilds that required the highest level of play from the participants. But I didn’t want teams playing for fun either – my friend and I were striving for high results and were ready to work on mistakes. After researching the official WoW forum, I was able to find the perfect option – “The dwarves ate my grandfather.” Yes, that’s the name of the guild. As part of it, I “passed” the entire WoW Classic.
Choosing a race and class to start the game, I settled on an orc warrior, who, according to my idea, was to become a tank. It seemed to me that this way I could be guaranteed to find a place in the raid, because the role is not popular in WoW. But in the end, it turned out that this statement is true only for dungeons for five people. In raids for 40 players, teams only need a few tanks – the competition is very high.
In the first raid, which took place on October 16, 2019, they still took me in as a tank, although I managed to fulfill my duties as assigned only once during the passage – the rest of the time this position was occupied by other players. In three hours we managed to kill Onyxia and six bosses of Molten Core, and a week later Ragnaros himself fell from our hands. By the way, I defeated the Lord of Fire as a melee fighter, not a tank.
To be honest, I was given a new role due to the fact that no one else wanted to play it. However, the decision turned out to be fateful: I soon became one of the best fighters of our guild at that time and was the first to reach the mark of one thousand damage per second on one of the bosses. If you compare my statistics with those of the best players in the world, I will have nothing to be proud of, but in the ranks of our modest team I have become a real hero!
Ragnaros’ first kill
Mass PvP and World Boss Wars start
In mid-November 2019, Blizzard added the honor system to WoW Classic, which introduced rewards for PvP, and world bosses – Azuregos and Overlord Kazzak. By the time of release, hundreds and even thousands of Alliance and Horde fighters had gathered online across Azeroth. Unfortunately, this sense of unity and belonging to something great was accompanied by equally grandiose lags due to the influx of players.
And if on the release of WoW Classic technical problems mostly prevented only the entrance to the server, this time they seriously spoiled the gameplay. The fact is that the very concept of mass PvP in the classic version of Blizzard’s MMORPG is quite clumsy: in fact, in such battles, those groups that outnumber the enemy in the number and number of abilities that deal damage in the area win. Of course, Classic also has a tactical component, but even the most skilled strategists cannot always turn the battle in their favor. Lags reduced these chances to zero and completely deprived world PvP of entertainment. Hundreds of players were forced to watch a turn-based RPG in which the effects of casting spells sometimes only worked after ten seconds.
Battle in the Blasted Lands – The Horde storms the Alliance settlement and … is defeated.
It was especially “fun” in locations with world bosses, where the bulk of users were drawn. Killing Azuregos and Kazzak is not the most difficult task in and of itself. The whole difficulty with them lies in the fact that these bosses are located in the open world, so at any second players of the hostile faction can intervene in the battle. And this is already a sufficient challenge, but on the day of release, users had another adversary – technical problems, which made the process of battling bosses much less enjoyable. For example, due to the high load on the servers, the killing of Kazzak was not credited to the players several times – they defeated the boss, but flew out of the game, and upon their return they found an enemy that had already revived. However, even in such conditions, the majority did not lose their optimism!
The excitement around the world bosses died down over time, but then the developers added the dragons of nightmare to the game – Ysondre, Emeriss, Taerar and Lethona. Then the real hunt began, because from these creatures it was possible to get things with resistance to the magic of nature, which were supposed to be in demand in the upcoming raid. To increase their chances, the players of both factions formed special alliances, where the best guilds of “Plamegor” were invited. The Horde called such a community the Horde Hub, and I was lucky to become one of those who actively participated in its development – we spent more than a dozen sleepless nights in battles with Alliance players.
Along the way, we continued to visit the Fiery Core. It so happened that when we joined the guild, my friend and I got into different statics, so we killed the bosses separately. In my group, the raids were pretty calm, since we initially had a lot of good, adequate players. In the statics of a friend, everything was exactly the opposite – there were more … extraordinary personalities, which resulted in conflicts that hindered progress. After a few months, a friend stopped enjoying this game and left WoW Classic.
First Taerar on “Plamegor”
Blackwing Lair – Mastering and Drama
On the night of February 13, 2023, the second raid dungeon for 40 people – “Lair of the Blackwing”, opened in World of Warcraft Classic. Our guild decided to actively master the new raid and collected three statics, the total number of which reached 120 players. And for the sake of this event I even took a day off for a few days.
Difficulties began even before the start of the raid. To get into the dungeon, you had to click on a special sphere – the only one on the entire server. I think you can imagine how much excitement was around her at the time of the release of “Lair of the Blackwing”. The sphere was not corny to be seen! As a result, we had to fight our way into the dungeon for about 20 minutes.
In the first few hours, we dealt with two bosses, and then went to bed to continue the raid in the evening. On the second run, we easily defeated the third defender Nefarian, and then got stuck on the Firemaw, which became the most serious test of the Blackwing Lair. On it, we died for several hours – in total, the dragon defeated us 16 times. Players in the current version of World of Warcraft now have a smile on their faces, because for them such a number of wipes to master is nothing, but this is the first time we’ve encountered something like this in WoW Classic.
After the great victory over Firemaw, we did not encounter any other difficulties and completely passed the raid on February 14, becoming the 43rd guild in the ranking on Russian-language servers. The result is not the worst, but it did not live up to our expectations. Now we can say with confidence that we did not have enough preparation for something bigger then. On the other hand, such mastery also had its own charm – being an ordinary player, I did not feel any responsibility for the overall result and with great pleasure I ran towards adventures.
But soon more serious problems began to be revealed – as a result of the development of the raid, several conflicts were brewing in the guild. They have arisen due to the poor study of organizational issues, as well as due to greed and poor communication. In the JSMD (abbreviated name of the guild) players received items for points, which were calculated according to a special system. During the development, things were distributed by the so-called consul – a person who himself decided who would get this or that item. To some, his decisions seemed unfair. In addition, for the raid was prepared “chemistry” – consumables that increase the characteristics of the character or give protection. Their distribution also caused a lot of controversy, grievances and conflicts. As a result, this led to the fact that within the framework of the JSMD, three independent collectives were formed, which very rarely contacted each other, although they were part of the same guild.
In anticipation of mastering the “Lair of the Blackwing”
Becoming a Raid Leader
Having mastered the “Lair of the Wing of Darkness”, we proceeded to the weekly passage of the raid, but already in the composition of our statics. Every day I became more and more interested in WoW Classic, delving into details and improving game performance. One day I realized that my skills had grown a lot compared to what was at the start. At the same time, most of the other raiders progressed much more slowly. As a result, I found myself at a crossroads: to go to a stronger team, where I could show good results, but at the same time abandon all my acquaintances and friends, or stay, maintaining this connection, but sacrifice progress.
The decision was very difficult, because many people with whom I had been playing for more than half a year at that time became really very close to me. The situation was complicated by the departure of my good friend, who was also one of the key figures in statics. After carefully weighing everything, I decided to stay in the team, because I realized that dry progress without a friendly atmosphere, to which I am so accustomed, will not give me almost any pleasure. However, I didn’t want to be content with the current state of affairs either, so I found a rather radical way out – I became a raid leader.
It seemed to me that this is an option in which I kill two birds with one stone – stay in the team and improve our overall progress. The nuance was that at that time I did not have leadership experience and was weak in general knowledge in WoW Classic, which was required to increase the level of static play. I had only a few months of practice behind my back in Destiny 2, but in scale it could not even remotely compare with WoW. Despite this, I got down to business.
Meditation after a failed raid
My career as a raid leader began with taking the guys to Blackwing Lair, Molten Core and Onyxia’s Lair, voicing key commands in voice chat. Many people mistakenly believe that this is where the RL’s area of responsibility ends, but this is not the case. Hidden behind the raid guidance is a huge layer of analytical and organizational work that any good leader must do. Having mastered the basic points, I turned with a proposal to the raid leader acting on paper to transfer this post to me, and he agreed.
Do not forget that World of Warcraft, and especially its classic version, is an incredibly social game, so the raid leader is forced to solve not only game issues, but also to cope with conflicts in the team. After my official entry into a new position, I very often began to plunge into various disputes that arose among the static participants. Adult men and women came to me, told about their problems, and I, being a 24-year-old guy who even in his life and feelings is not really able to figure it out, tried to help both in terms of play and morality. Sometimes I succeeded, and sometimes I did not – in any case, thanks to this, I gained invaluable experience that changed me as a person in a good way, and also gave a bunch of new knowledge and skills.
The most difficult situation for me as a raid leader was the situation that happened before the release of the final raid of WoW Classic. With the release of this dungeon, it became possible to collect the legendary staff of Atiesh, which many players really wanted to get. The bottom line is that the extraction of chips for him takes place over several months, since they rarely and in small quantities fall only from the bosses of “Naxxramas”, and they need to collect as many as 40 pieces. As is customary in most guilds, the owner of this and other legendary items is directly chosen by the raid leader. I faced a similar task.
In fact, I had to choose one player who will receive Atiesh. There were many applicants, but there were only three obvious candidates. One of them immediately dropped out, because, despite his valuable contribution to the life of the team, he joined us relatively recently. The second candidate already possessed another rare legendary item, but at the same time agreed with the original leader of the statics that he would deal with various organizational issues in the guild in exchange for this staff. However, it seemed to me that too many different events had taken place since the contract (which was over a year ago). In addition, I did not make any promise and did not adopt it from the past RL.
Having thought it over well, I decided that the staff should go to the third candidate, who played statically from the day of its foundation, served as a class leader and simply helped us a lot. I also needed to inform the second player that he would not receive Atiesh, although he was quite worthy of him. On X-day, when it was no longer possible to postpone the conversation, I phoned the second candidate on Discord. I was very scared and uncomfortable because I really didn’t want to upset the person. In the end, I still said what I had to – in terms of the level of emotional stress, it was very close to a declaration of love. At that moment, I felt like the worst person in the world, but I realized that I had done everything right.
New mount
“Gates of An’Qiraj” – a ten-hour event and a battle with K’Tun
At the end of July 2023, the “Gate of Ahn’Qiraj” patch was released on WoW Classic servers, with which two new raids for 20 and 40 people, respectively, became available to players. The peculiarity of the update was that the opening of the dungeons was accompanied by a thematic event – in order to get into Ahn’Qiraj, the players of the Alliance and the Horde had to collect a huge amount of resources together, and then take part in a ten-hour battle with monsters. The excitement around this event was due to two reasons: firstly, the event is unique and was held only once; secondly, during it it was possible to get a legendary vehicle – the Black Qiraji battle tank. There is no other way to get it.
Большая часть владельцев Черного киражского боевого танка — всего на «Пламегоре» удалось добыть 90 этих маунтов
На одном из офицерских собраний гильдии, которое проходило незадолго до выхода патча, я поднял тему с фармом маунта. Если конкретнее, предложил выбрать одного человека из гильдии, которому мы помогли бы собрать достаточно ресурсов, чтобы получить боевой танк. Увы, мое предложение было отклонено, и мы могли стать одной из немногих гильдий, которые не пытались получить маунта. Ситуацию исправила девушка, которая играла в моем статике. Она настолько негодовала по поводу случившегося, что сама организовала конкурс, где за помощь согильдийцу в фарме киражского танка можно было получить несколько призов — игровую валюту и фото ее обнаженной груди. Поучаствовать мог любой обладатель тега ДСМД, а снимок достался бы десяти игрокам, которые пришлют наибольшее количество необходимых ресурсов. Само собой, такая мотивация привела к потрясающим результатам: специальные предметы для маунта были добыты меньше чем за неделю.
Для получения киражского танка было необходимо в течение десяти часов ударить в специальный гонг, доступ к которому открывался только тогда, когда обе фракции на сервере нафармили достаточно ресурсов для начала войны. Под конец ивента, который завершился уже утром, мы, будучи сонными и измотанными, убили последних врагов, и врата открылись — с этого момента игрокам был доступен рейд «Ан’Кираж», где в версии на 40 человек финальным боссом выступил древний бог К’Тун.
Освоение рейда началось уже на следующий день. Под конец «Логова Крыла Тьмы» я не только стал рейд-лидером, но и переквалифицировался в главного танка. Решение я принял после того, как игрок, выступавший на этой роли до меня, перестал уделять статику достаточно времени, чтобы мы могли прогрессировать. Несмотря на то что рейд был сложнее ЛКТ, убить К’Туна нам удалось в первую же неделю. Проблемы вызвал только один босс, который не был обязательным для убийства финального злодея, — Нечистотон. Его нам удалось одолеть только 16 сентября (рейд стал доступен 22 августа), после чего рейд без особых трудностей зачищался еженедельно.
Первое убийство К’Туна
«Наксрамас» — полный провал и легендарный успех
Через пару месяцев после освоения нами «Ан’Киража» Blizzard анонсировала выход рейда «Наксрамас», последним боссом которого является Кел’Тузад. В отличие от актуальной версии World of Warcraft, где при освоении любая победа над боссом — это уже достижение, в «классике» ценится не факт прохождения подземелья, а то, с какой скоростью это сделано. Говоря простым языком, игроки привыкли закрывать рейды без особых проблем. Однако «Наксрамас» сразу дал понять, что с ним такой номер не пройдет — по крайней мере, у большинства гильдий.
В первый день освоения нам удалось убить всего пять боссов из пятнадцати, а на следующий — и вовсе ни одного. После еженедельного обновления мы одолели шесть прислужников Кел’Тузада, а затем кое-как добрались до десятки. К сожалению, многие оказались не готовы к такому темпу освоения — игроки, которые привыкли к быстрым и безболезненным прохождениям, были деморализованы неудачами в «Наксе». Из-за этого многие наши рейдеры стали уходить из статика и даже из World of Warcraft. С аналогичными проблемами столкнулись и многие другие гильдии, огромная часть которых по итогу развалилась, так и не убив Кел’Тузада.
Из-за ухода игроков прогресс моего статика замедлился еще сильнее — фактически мы начали регрессировать. Эти трудности спровоцировали ряд конфликтов, которые сильно давили на меня как на лидера коллектива — и без того тяжелая ситуация усугублялась поспешными эмоциональными решениями людей. Особенно горько было в моменты, когда статик покидали ключевые во всех смыслах игроки — без них и моя вера в успех серьезно страдала.
Релиз «Наксрамаса» состоялся 4 декабря 2023 года. В конце месяца нам удалось достичь прогресса только в 12 убитых боссов, что, разумеется, не оправдало ничьих ожиданий. После Нового года мы продолжили сражаться. Освоение превратилось в настоящую войну — и я чувствовал это отчетливее всех. Помимо игровых трудностей, на меня давили и эмоциональные переживания моих тиммейтов. День за днем я впитывал негатив, который витал в воздухе, — чувствовал, как люди расстраиваются, слышал их тяжелые вздохи и раз за разом пропускал через себя эту палитру чувств. К концу января я не выдержал.
Босс, которого нам так и не удалось убить без мировых баффов
Больше чем игра
Очередной уход ключевого игрока, с которым мы вместе сражались на протяжении года, стал поворотным моментом — все негативные эмоции одномоментно хлынули наружу. Тогда я осознал, что такая игра в WoW Classic разрушает мою жизнь: переживания и расстройства напрямую влияли на сон, аппетит и общее состояние, буквально вгоняли меня в депрессию. Хорошо всё обдумав, я пришел к выводу, что так больше не может продолжаться, и принял невероятно трудное для себя решение — уйти из «классики». Это стало приговором для статика, потому что на мне было завязано слишком много — коллектив лишился идейного и фактического лидера, а также главного танка, заменить которого было некем.
Обдумывая это решение, я догадывался, что процесс ухода будет трудным, но не осознавал насколько. Некоторые игроки очень резко восприняли эту ситуацию и стали обвинять меня в предательстве и малодушии. По-настоящему больно было смотреть, как расстраиваются мои близкие друзья. Признаюсь, в эти моменты глаза наполнялись самыми настоящими слезами. Некоторые могут удивиться, ведь WoW — это «просто игра», но за полтора года она стала для меня чем-то большим. В первую очередь именно за счет людей, которые окружали меня.
После того как я объявил об уходе, эти ребята убедили меня провести последний рейд. К тому же, посмотрев на реакцию близких мне по духу товарищей, я проникся и подумал, что и сам поторопился с решением. На собрании статика, где я без умолку болтал что-то очень трогательное, у меня неожиданно вырвалось обещание: я сказал, что буду готов посетить несколько рейдов как главный танк, если появятся те, кто найдет в себе смелость дальше вести коллектив вперед. К моему большому удивлению, такие люди появились — под началом одного из лучших игроков статика и по совместительству моего хорошего друга был создан так называемый совет, который взял управление нашей группой на себя.
Словно после цунами, ребята начали устранять последствия разрушений, вызванных моим решением. На место тех, кто ушел, были в срочном порядке найдены новые игроки, а все остальные вопросы теперь решались сообща, не одним только лидером. В успех такого состава никто не верил — в душе все понимали, что нашему статику пришел конец. Что уж скрывать, даже члены совета весьма скептически относились к затее.
Меня же это, наоборот, вдохновило — кажется, я был единственным, кто верил в успех статика. Сплотившись, все начали намного усерднее стараться в рейдах. Уже на следующей неделе мы восстановили наработанный прогресс, а позже и вовсе убили тринадцатого босса — Четырех всадников. Далее перед нами встал Сапфирон — дракон, который, по мнению многих, является самым сложным боссом в «Наксе».
Первые несколько попыток провалились. Казалось, что главный защитник Кел’Тузада снова окажется нам не по силам. Однако на последней попытке произошло какое-то чудо, и Сапфирон был повержен — дорога к главному злодею «Наксрамаса» оказалась открыта. Убийство «Келя» было уже во многом формальностью: мы справились с ним на следующий день, одержав победу не только над игрой, но и над самими собой.
Для меня эта история стала настоящей сказкой. Когда я не нашел сил продолжать сражаться, люди, ради которых я так старался всё это время, подали мне руку, вытащив из бури эмоциональных переживаний и снова подарив надежду. После убийства Кел’Тузада я объявил, что статик берет перерыв от рейдов до выхода дополнения The Burning Crusade Classic, дата релиза которого пока неизвестна. Мне казалось, что ничто не сможет превзойти такой яркий финал и лучшего шанса закончить «классику» уже не будет.
Второй статик гильдии ДСМД после первого убийства Кел’Тузада
Я собираюсь продолжить приключения в The Burning Crusade уже в составе собственной гильдии, которую мы с ребятами назвали «Вундервафли». Возможно, ее история подарит еще более впечатляющий сюжет для следующий статьи. Выход TBC запланирован на 2023 год, поэтому мы уже активно обдумываем план развития коллектива в новом дополнении. Готовы ли мы? Ну… будем стараться! А пока на этот вопрос может ответить Иллидан:
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asyncLoad( 'https://static.apester.com/js/sdk/v2.0/apester-javascript-sdk.min.js', function () {
}, !!window.APESTER );
asyncLoad( 'https://wtrfall.com/widget.js', function () { if (!window.WTF || !WTF.bootstrap || !WTF.bootstrap("wtf-broadcast")) { setTimeout(arguments.callee, 50); } }, !!window.WTF );
asyncLoad( '//vk.com/js/api/openapi.js?147', function() { if (!window.$ || !window.VK || !VK.Widgets || !VK.Widgets.Post) { setTimeout(arguments.callee, 50);
return; }
$('.vk_post').each(function(i, elm) { var post = $(elm).data();
VK.Widgets.Post($(elm).attr('id'), post.userId, post.id, post.hash); }); }, !!window.VK ); })(); });
